Distracted by sandwich, truck driver in South Brunswick slams into traffic

SOUTH BRUNSWICK – A tractor-trailer driver, allegedly distracted by eating a sandwich, slammed into the rear of a car on Route 1, sending a woman to the hospital, police said.

The woman's injuries are not considered life-threatening, police said.

Police gave the following account: Willard May, 43, of New Castle, Del., was driving a tractor trailer for U.S. mail in the left lane of Route 1 south this morning when he took his eyes off the road to take a bite of a sandwich. He was driving about 35 to 40 miles per hour and didn't see that traffic in front of him had slowed.

May's Volvo tractor-trailer rear-ended a 2013 Toyota driven by Brenda Walker, 65, of Somerset. Walker's car was forced into the right lane, where it collided with a 2013 BMW driven by Beth Eisler, 49, of New York City. The BMW ran off the road onto the grass shoulder.

Walker was taken by Plainsboro EMS to University Medical Center of Princeton at Plainsboro for treatment of neck and back pain.

May was issued a summons for careless driving and following too closely, police said.

A spokesman for the United States Postal Service said that the driver worked for an independent contractor, Veltri Trucking, out of Pennsylvania. The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment left after 5 p.m. today.

The driver was returning to Philadelphia from the Postal Service processing center in Jersey City when the accident occurred, Postal Service spokesman George Flood said. No mail was in the vehicle at the time of the crash, he said.

A message left for May at his Delaware home was not immediately returned.

A bill proposed last year by Assemblyman John Wisniewski, a Democrat of Sayreville, would explicitly ban distracted driving, including activities like eating, if it's done "in a manner that interferes with the safe operation of the vehicle," according to The Star-Ledger.